Sunday morning

First, photos from Honduras, from Melina and the boys' visit to family there (Cach and his cousin, Gracia! And little Cello-growing!)






Now back to today:

Ella and I went to the park this morning, a little after sunrise. I think we've been going too early; the light of the sun, newly risen, was beautiful. It was brisk but not really cold. Cold enough apparently for the skim of ice on the pond to mostly stick. I was happy to hear the laughing duck this morning as we got out of the car - it's been colder when we've been there lately and the ducks were not visible, making me wonder where they "go". Still the little group of Mallards was confined to a small portion of the lower pond where the ice was melted. Good to see them though.

I see Dr. R on Tuesday afternoon, just the regular blood work and checkup, but I realize the white noise stress is in the background of my consciousness, level rising ever so slightly as the day approaches (and since she postponed 10 days ago or so to this coming Tuesday, the incremental increasing has continued). Once again I realize that in the days/weeks leading up to the appointment, every odd ache or pang or twinge becomes further static in that white noise stress. I'm wondering when you come to trust your body and your mental experience of your body again. It's not that I'm consumed by stress or worry; it's just that it's ... there ... in the background .. like people who have the condition of hearing ringing in their ears all the time. I'm writing about it not because it's especially BAD right now, but because it is apparent to me, I'm conscious of it, and I'm wondering when - or if - it will fade and become part of my background consciousness and be indistinguishable.

My son Sam stopped by for a quick overnight visit on his way from NY/NJ, where he was working, to Boston, where he visits a friend with whom he is collaborating on a new documentary. It was a really nice, if short, visit. My daughter Corinne continues her work in Haiti, planning to stay for 6 months; it seems difficult, rewarding, frustrating, intense, occasionally inspirational, all at once. Yet the rest of her life calls.

Isn't that true for any of us paying attention. What next? It's important to ask, without being paralyzed by the question so that we lose today, which is actually the only real life we live. Still as I enter my seventh decade, I need remind myself.

I've been enjoying - in a perverse sense - the Republican primary race, if watching the stupidity, moral degeneracy, arrogance, and general cluelessness of the species acting out in front of you can be said to be "enjoyable". Not that I'd expect more from the "liberal," "left," "Democratic" side of the American political spectrum. Still, can it hurt to smile and even laugh out loud when the alternative is to weep?

Peace, peace, far and near, Soon, if not soon enough.

Thursday - 2 year anniversary

Two years ago this morning, the Haitian people woke up to an earthquake - except the 300,000 that died, and the 500,000 that still live in "shelters" - if you call living in a tropical area subject to wind and rain under a tarp living in "shelter." Please do not forget. Please watch this video and read these articles.

lhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PfTBMeT921c

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/11/haiti-earthquake-recovery_n_1197730.html#s603514&title=Watch_Related_Video

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/03/haiti-after-the-quake/


Please do what you can.

If not now, when?

If not us, who?

Wednesday evening

I was to have seen Dr. R on Tuesday afternoon. Monday afternoon her office called and left a message, canceling; no reason given except she is unable to make the appointment. They told me the new appointment would be next week at 1:30. I called them back, of course not reaching a human being, and left a message to say I can't make a 1:30 appointment; I need the latest appointment available (so I don't have to take a whole or even half day vacation). Long and short, the appointment is now rescheduled for January 31.

I'm not feeling especially stressed about this visit. This is my mid-scan cycle appointment that involves blood tests and a visit/exam by Dr. R. Generally not invasive (unless you consider needles for blood letting invasive, something I no longer do). But somehow I am conscious that this appointment is the turning of the cycle from the good news-based optimism immediately after a "good scan" coasting along until the time to the next scan is shorter than the time since the prior one. That's where I am now. Midway between scans. That means every day brings me closer to the next scan. The next scan - toward the end of April - is a big one. It marks my two year anniversary post-treatment. Assuming it goes well - and I have no reason to believe it will not - then I believe I will go from visits with both doctors every 3 months to visits every 6 months, and from scans every 6 months to 1 scan a year. Two years NED (no evidence of disease) is an important milestone. The first. The next big one will be five years.

Anyway, that's where things stand.

Meanwhile, cat-sitting - actually, not sitting, just stopping by twice a day - for a couple of days for my friend H's new kittens, Pearl and Paulie (who began life as Polly until the first vet visit indicated Paulie might be more appropriate). Not sure exactly how old they are now - but definitely still kittens, 3 months maybe! If watching a couple of kittens tumble around and wrestle and drag a toy "bird" around and pounce on it and anything else that moves - if that doesn't put a smile on your face, then just take a few minutes to enjoy the Republican battle for the presidential nomination.

Peace

Sunday morning

Odd weather - shirt sleeves in mid-January in New England. Mother Nature is having a hot flash. Does that mean she is menopausal?

Posting really to share this link to a clip from a documentary in the works about a very special school in Georgia. Gives me hope. Keeps the sun in my sky.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ctqfilms/a-place-in-the-world

Please go and share.

Peace.

Friday evening

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

(To hear the poem read: http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2009/rv-listeners/poem_berry-thepeaceofwildthings.shtml )


Peace.

Saturday night - New Year's Eve

Happy New Year to all. Is it possible that in 2012 we'll begin to treat each other with respect if not kindness and care for the planet as if we understood that our lives and our children's and grandchildren's lives depended on it? I have to hope so and nurture faith in my fellow human beings. I have faith in nature, in its ability to be challenged, to repair itself and go on. And we human beings are part of nature, whatever grandiose (and wrong) ideas we may have about ourselves.

But in the meantime, still so much suffering. Poverty. War. Disease. Hunger. Loneliness.

My prayer of hope for this new year 2012 - may each of us be free of fear; may each of us be healthy; may each of us be happy; may every single one of us live in peace.

Sunday morning

Ella and I went to the park this morning. I awoke - actually Ella woke me (David and I had gone to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie last night and got home and went to bed later than usual) later than usual, after 7:00 am, so arrived at the park at around 7:30. A bright and beautiful and cold morning. The sun already 15 degrees over the horizon, a position it may usually just be reaching as we leave the park. The season's first skims of ice formed on the pond. We also were at the park yesterday, and yesterday there was a flock of Canada geese there. Yesterday was a still chilly morning and the flock of geese floated almost motionless across the pond, as if planted in soil rather than floating on water. Today no geese at all, a couple of Mallards and that was all. On our way around the western loop we met a friendly man and dog (the latter named Malya) and I let Ella say hello. The man was - as often is the case - quite taken with Ella and asked questions about her. Meanwhile Ella and Malya became acquainted - Ella on lease, Malya (male) not. Eventually I let Ella go and the two had quite a romp. Ella is twice Malya's size but his littler teeth were just as sharp and he was not shy with his nips if Ella got out of line. It was good for Ella. I wish I had more occasions when I felt comfortable letting her romp with another dog.

Today's walk in the park reminded me of why I love going to the park. It reminded me of how good it is to pay attention to what is happening in your life right at this moment, since there actually isn't any other moment. To be caught up in what already happened - which is gone, done and over - or what might happen - which hasn't yet happened and may never happen or may happen entirely differently than you imagine - what a waste. And yet we do it. I do it. My guess is I do it more than I do not do it. In other words, most of my life I am living and not paying attention to it, but thinking (in my case at least) usually of what is to come. Why? What is so intimidating or frightening about paying attention to now? Is it that we think we'll be unprepared for what comes? The closer the end of my life comes - and even believing that I am well and cancer-free and going to stay that way, nonetheless, the end of my life is coming closer, no two ways about that - the more afraid I become of getting to the end and realizing I didn't pay attention to my life, I didn't LIVE my life, and now it is too late.

Christopher Hitchens died this past week, may he rest in peace. I type those words and wonder what he would think of them. I think he would appreciate the sentiment but not the factual content. I've been reading quite a few obituaries and appreciations of him and I realize that he seems one person who actually did live his life in the now, paying attention. His writing certainly evidences the breadth of scope of his attention. So he died at age 62, but boy, did he live those 62 years. Would that we could all say the same.

Okay, time to go pay attention.

Peace.